New Orleans-Class

[Bry_Sinclair]

On the New Orleans-Class, there are three "pods" (two on top of the saucer and one on the bottom of the secondary hull) that I have always wondered about. Has there been an explanation as to what they actually do?

Are the sensor arrays, heavy-duty tractor beam emplacements, torpedo launchers, or something else entirely? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[Robert Comsol]

Always looked like TMP Enterprise style torpedo launchers to me. Not only do they have the same proportions near the front but I think the size would also be very much the same.

Bob

 

[Angry Fanboy]

Angry Fanboy

I suppose it's virtually impossible to say - just pods added to make the model look more interesting is the only 'real' answer.

Speculatively in universe they could be any one of the things you've already mentioned, but going by what we've been exposed to on TNG I'm instinctively weary of going with weapons pods or huge torpedo launchers - we've seen the Defiant and Prometheus introduced as de facto warships but these are a rare exception.

I'd probably go with labelling them as mission-specific pods, possibly ones that can be swapped according to whatever duties the ship is engaged in - something akin to what is eventually seen on a smaller scale with the runabouts.

 

[Robert Comsol]

These might have been ship designs deliberately created to deal with the Borg threat, that's why I thought these were torpedo launchers (which IMHO are just too reminscent of the TMP Enterprise torpedo launcher to be just coincidental).

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly Commander Shelby identifies these ships by name which I always interpreted as a hint that she was somehow involved in their designs.

Bob

P.S. Does someone have a good picture for illustration purposes?

 

[SchwEnt]

I've frequently seen New Orleans class vessels referred to as frigates. If that's accepted, they'd be fighting ships and therefore torpedo pods would be appropriate.

 

[B.J.]

I've always thought they were some sort of sensor pods.

Does someone have a good picture for illustration purposes?

See this page, especially near the bottom.

 

[Nob Akimoto]

The New Orleans class ships identified in TNG are the Renegade, Rutledge, Thomas Paine and Kyushu, of which Renegade and Thomas Paine were identified as "frigates" in "Conspiracy" and Rutledge as a ship involved in the Cardassian border wars ("The Wounded") and also as leading the Federation's counter offensive into the Archanis Sector (DS9 "Nor the Battle to the Strong"), so it's likely those outboard pods are weapons or at least modular pods.

 

[Unicron]

The write up in Tigger's excellent Ships of the Starfleet followup treats them as bolt-on torpedo pods, which were added to augment the original design after hostilities broke out with the Cardassians. Works for me, and I see no reason why they couldn't be swapped out for sensors or other alternative packages.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I tend to lean more towards torpedo launchers myself (since the ship has been termed a 'frigate'), though that would mean she is packing (at least) six tubes which are all very exposed--not the smartest design feature IMO (then again this is from an organisation that insists on putting the bridge on the very top of the ship ).

 

[Nob Akimoto]

They might be burst fire launchers like the ones on the Galaxy explaining their "bolt on" nature. As for having them exposed, we've seen that hull doesn't really seem to stop energy and torpedo weapons anyway, so having the launchers outside of the inner hull might actually be a safety feature, kind of compartmentalized ammunition storage.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

^ Good point.

 

[Blip]

The write up in Tigger's excellent Ships of the Starfleet followup treats them as bolt-on torpedo pods, which were added to augment the original design after hostilities broke out with the Cardassians. Works for me, and I see no reason why they couldn't be swapped out for sensors or other alternative packages.

Makes perfect sense, IMO. Does SotS make any mention of New Orleans being designed as a smaller-scale pathfinder for the tech we see later on as the Nebula- and Galaxy-classes?

 

[LOLPeanutButter]

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly Commander Shelby identifies these ships by name which I always interpreted as a hint that she was somehow involved in their designs.

I think the bulk of the Wolf 359 force was trained and equipped to deal with The Borg. Mention was made of an anti-borg task-force/group that she was part of. That's why she knew each ship by name... she had worked with these crews anticipating a better outcome and never thought for a moment that the Borg would come in and apply 999,999 CRIT to the entire task-force in just a few short hours.

These ships could have been assigned to this specific taskforce... when she refered to getting "the fleet" back up and running in a year... I figured she referred to this specific little task-force/sub-fleet.

As for the pods, why not rapid-fire secondary torpedo pods... this particular New Orleans class ship could have been refit to park off side and spam torpedoes. Depending on where you fit in the Canon-Registry War, maybe this was a prototype of the Akira's 'fifteen tubes of doom" design. Pure rapid-fire torpedo-spam boats for specific applications.

Do we have any other onscreen images for New Orleans class ships? Or is the glimpse of the ship at Wolf the only one?

 

[Robert Comsol]

Do we have any other onscreen images for New Orleans class ships? Or is the glimpse of the ship at Wolf the only one?

I'm afraid the glimpse of the ship near Wolf 359 is the only onscreen image available.

Bob

 

[Blip]

LOL @ "torpedo-spamming" the Borg cube

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Would torpedo launchers need to be that long?

I would've thought something more like the super-phaser we saw on the Enterprise-D in All Good Things.

 

[Unicron]

Makes perfect sense, IMO. Does SotS make any mention of New Orleans being designed as a smaller-scale pathfinder for the tech we see later on as the Nebula- and Galaxy-classes?

Partially. It was considered part of the "New Fleet" package that began introduction in the 2330s, alongside designs like the Steamrunner and Challenger. The Galaxy and the Nebula classes both drew design elements from the New Orleans.

Originally, it was assumed that the design wouldn't be active along the frontier and border areas, so it had no torpedo launchers in favor of a larger sensor suite. It was felt that the traditional torpedo systems would take up too much internal space and the trade was acceptable given the peaceful relations, although the decision was controversial in Starfleet. The Cardassian War changed that, and the New Orleans ships in service initially fared badly because of the lack of torpedos. Their systems were otherwise very similar to those on the Ambassador class, and eventually the ASDB found that mounting the bolt-on launchers was a good alternative. It gave the New Orleans the needed punch while also bypassing the problem of internal space. The ships often served in units with Steamrunners against the Cardassians.

 

[LOLPeanutButter]

LOL @ "torpedo-spamming" the Borg cube

I play Star Trek Online, and I fly a "torpedo boat."

 

[Blip]

Partially. It was considered part of the "New Fleet" package that began introduction in the 2330s, alongside designs like the Steamrunner and Challenger. The Galaxy and the Nebula classes both drew design elements from the New Orleans.

Originally, it was assumed that the design wouldn't be active along the frontier and border areas, so it had no torpedo launchers in favor of a larger sensor suite. It was felt that the traditional torpedo systems would take up too much internal space and the trade was acceptable given the peaceful relations, although the decision was controversial in Starfleet. The Cardassian War changed that, and the New Orleans ships in service initially fared badly because of the lack of torpedos. Their systems were otherwise very similar to those on the Ambassador class, and eventually the ASDB found that mounting the bolt-on launchers was a good alternative. It gave the New Orleans the needed punch while also bypassing the problem of internal space. The ships often served in units with Steamrunners against the Cardassians.

Ah, thank you The bolt-on torpoedo concept also makes a lot of sense.

However:
The 2330s seems a little too early to me. I'd have thought early 2340s to be a realistic timeframe, due to both the class registry numbers and also since the Ambassador, Renaissance and their ilk were still quite prevalent. Likewise, I'd expect Challenger to be of later construction. Since the Cardie War didn't start until 2347and lasted well into the 2350s, there's ample opportunity to have observed this weakness in design and rushed to correct it.

As for Steamrunner, I can't envisage that as pre-Wolf-359. Based on the layout and the stylistic cues (such as they are for anything as of ST:FC!) I'd have put it as something designed around the same time as the Defiant, at the earliest.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

^That's a common enough school of thought, however it overlooks the somewhat more common school that likes to think of NCC numbers as linear, thus placing all the FC designs before the launch of the Galaxy class in the late 50s (at the latest). Thus, many people just think that "design cues" are simply from a different group of designs that have stayed similar through several decades. Inasmuch as some case designs (Volvo, VW, etc.) stayed the same for many years concurrently, and how US or Russian warships can be distinguished by certain design cues regardless of what decade you're looking at.

So, the "Galaxy-esque" and "Sovereign-esque" families of starships all follow certain looks, with certain refinements over the years, both tending to become more streamlined as they get more advanced for example. No, this doesn't explain why there were no FC designs in the wreckage at Wolf 359 (or anyplace before FC), nor any Wolf 259 designs AFTER Wolf 359, but personally I'm happy simply thinking that space is just really, really big.

Mark